Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Prayer of Thanksgiving[a]
138 I thank you, Lord, with all my heart;
I sing praise to you before the gods.
2 I face your holy Temple,
bow down, and praise your name
because of your constant love and faithfulness,
because you have shown that your name and your commands are supreme.[b]
3 You answered me when I called to you;
with your strength you strengthened me.
4 All the kings in the world will praise you, Lord,
because they have heard your promises.
5 They will sing about what you have done
and about your great glory.
6 Even though you are so high above,
you care for the lowly,
and the proud cannot hide from you.
7 When I am surrounded by troubles,
you keep me safe.
You oppose my angry enemies
and save me by your power.
8 You will do everything you have promised;
Lord, your love is eternal.
Complete the work that you have begun.
The Fall of the King of Tyre
11 The Lord spoke to me again. 12 “Mortal man,” he said, “grieve for the fate that is waiting for the king of Tyre. Tell him what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying: You were once an example of perfection. How wise and handsome you were! 13 You lived in Eden, the garden of God, and wore gems of every kind: rubies and diamonds; topaz, beryl, carnelian, and jasper; sapphires, emeralds, and garnets. You had ornaments of gold. They were made for you[a] on the day you were created. 14 I put a terrifying angel there to guard you.[b] You lived on my holy mountain and walked among sparkling gems. 15 Your conduct was perfect from the day you were created until you began to do evil. 16 You were busy buying and selling, and this led you to violence and sin. So I forced you to leave my holy mountain, and the angel who guarded you drove you away from the sparkling gems. 17 You were proud of being handsome, and your fame made you act like a fool. Because of this I hurled you to the ground and left you as a warning to other kings. 18 You did such evil in buying and selling that your places of worship were corrupted. So I set fire to the city and burned it to the ground. All who look at you now see you reduced to ashes. 19 You are gone, gone forever, and all the nations that had come to know you are terrified, afraid that they will share your fate.”
Lawsuits against Fellow Christians
6 If any of you have a dispute with another Christian, how dare you go before heathen judges instead of letting God's people settle the matter? 2 Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to judge the world, aren't you capable of judging small matters? 3 Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life! 4 If such matters come up, are you going to take them to be settled by people who have no standing in the church? 5 Shame on you! Surely there is at least one wise person in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between fellow Christians. 6 Instead, one Christian goes to court against another and lets unbelievers judge the case!
7 The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? 8 Instead, you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another, even other believers! 9 Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts 10 or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves—none of these will possess God's Kingdom. 11 Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.